Plumber's Crack

Well, I began a temporary full-time job last Wednesday. I’m working at a fisheries lab on campus, helping a master’s student get the lab set up to hold fish that he will eventually use for a temperature and physiology experiment later this spring.

On my first day in the fish lab, I walked into the room where I spent most of my time in the summer of 2003 (and will be spending most of the next six weeks) and suddenly wished to be driving across the country in that moment. This room resembles a huge walk-in refrigerator because of the sealing door and the evaporator fans that constantly keep the room at refrigerator-like temperatures, and then they told me I was going to be plumbing in the refrigerator. My emotions are often so easy to read; I wonder if the horror was apparent in my eyes. But it hasn’t been so bad. I can turn off the fan and leave the door open, and it’s fun to be creating something as opposed to performing a repetitive mindless task.

It is my job to re-plumb the tanks for the experiment, which means disassembling the old stuff and installing a new system to redirect the water to the correct tanks. I never would have qualified for a position like this had I actually applied; experience with PVC shows up absolutely nowhere on my resume, and I don’t have much to offer except for possible handy-man skills indirectly transferred from my dad (not likely) and perhaps the liberal arts ability to bluff my way through anything. So last week I drove the department pickup to the hardware store to stock up and valves and couplers and tees. Since then, I have been hacking away and creating plastic snow PVC shavings that follow me home on my clothes and in my hair. I try not to inhale too much of the super strong primer and glue that smell vaguely like nail polish remover. Whenever I walk into the office of the graduate students, the smell follows me and provides the basis for their junior high jokes. But hey, I’m going to have an income again, albeit small. For the moment, I’m enjoying the novelty of thinking what my work for the day amounted to: one month of student loan payments, or 30 pesto cheese rolls from the Co-Op, or half a bike rack for my new car.

Yesterday, I spent the day helping out a different graduate student dealing with New Zealand Mud Snails, a tiny but invasive species. I spent eight hours looking through a microscope to dissect these 2-3mm long snails and count their embryos (to eventually evaluate their reproductive potential). The day passed at a snail’s pace. I was thankful to pick up the hacksaw again today.